4 a.m. Blues

It's four o'clock in the morning, and I am pretty sure I would be happier if I could sleep another couple hours. Just a couple. Left to my druthers, I usually get up around six, anyway. My baby girl crept into my bed last night, par for the course, and as I type she is snoring softly, sprawled in the middle of my bed, although truth be told, the middle is where she has been all along. I resign myself to sleeping on six edges off the side of the bed, but what can you do? She IS the princess. If I ever meet a man a man I would like to have in bed I am sure I will regret letting this little habit bloom, but she needs me, and another truth to be told is I need her, too.

My boys are asleep in a happy pile in their bedroom. They have to get themselves up, dressed, some reasonable facsimile of breakfast in their bellies, and walk themselves the half a mile to school today. Clothes have been carefully laid out in a pile, cereal poured into bowls, with fruit alongside, waiting for milk only to make it become a balanced meal. Snacks and lunch have been meticulously packed into backpacks. But I am freaking out about having to leave them alone for a couple hours. Damn restaurant that won't open itself. I will loathe each and every selfish asshole that comes in, but only until 7:15, when my kids will leave for school. Once they have called to say goodbye, I will morph into my usual cheerful self, serving up a side of banter with the eggs, and it will be good.

It is virtually impossible to have kids AND get enough sleep if 4 a.m. is when you have to wake up. They simply have too much to do to get into bed at seven in the evening. The worst for me is that I take that little sleep and punctuate it with startles to see how much longer I have to sleep.

Happy Columbus Day! I am half Indian (yeah, I do not say Native American) and this "holiday" does not offend me. I'm probably going to lose my tribal card for saying so, but what is the big deal? The nature of "progress" destroys the old that dare to wander in its' path. It's too early to get all philosophical, so I will leave it at that, and have a great Monday, even if you think Columbus was a racist, genocidal old bastard!

Well, Hello there, Blogger!

Living on the edge, that's for damn sure. Most days I can't tell if it is lunacy or genius, a complete nervous breakdown or the cusp of perfect harmony. So I dangle, which is better than that dramatic fall off the edge, or used to be, except that swirling fog below doesn't scare me as much as it used to. And my fingers are tired, scraped raw, but not as raw as my heart.

Fuck. Load my Ipod with Fall Out Boy and Matchbox Romance and my closet with black skinny jeans.

I can't write where I normally do. People know me there. People expect things of me. If I am not funny, they will leave me. If I offend, they will leave me. If I handle the fucked up things about my life in a way that is different than they would handle the fucked up parts of theirs, they will leave me. If I have to tell them that I am waiting tables because writing just ain't paying the bills this fall, they will leave me. And I am supposed to not care. I am supposed to be a tough girl, sassy, unbreakable, but I am not. I am imminently breakable.

I also do not understand how to condense myself down to a few words.

I am a mom, that always comes first, and I am a writer, that comes second, and I love God, but I am not convinced He loves me.

I hate THE EX with every fiber of my being, but I still kiss him every single damn night in my dreams. Yeah, I'm not over it. My sister ripped me a new one on my "real" blog for still loving him. I can't help it. My world revolved around him for most of my adult life. She called me lovesick, and I am. I don't want to go back, but saying I don't love him won't fix anything, either.

I'm scared most of the time, and exhilarated, and I have procrastination down to an art form.

Great guys fall in love with me, but if they do, I am done, and I don't want anything to do with them. I know it's cruel, and I hate myself for doing it.

I consult tarot cards, which is really almost like consulting your deepest self, but I rarely take their good advice.

When I walk out of a six hour shift with $200+ in crumpled ones and fives, I have a hard time convincing myself that I should be doing more with my life.

I don't eat meat, but I don't crucify those that do. I hate being judged. It's the rudest, lowest thing you can do to another human being, act like you know them, when you don't and really never can. Most judgment is projection anyway; putting another neck on the block when you have sinned in your own heart.

I am a Christian, but in a pagan, earthy kind of way, and I will never deny Christ, but I do not insist that he is the only Truth, either. Surely the genius that created the cosmos can touch a human heart any way He may choose?

The kid's stupid rabbit ate several cords, and inexplicably stopped using the litter box. But he is the softest thing I have ever touched and he will sleep with a person some nights, warm and panting softly in your ear, so I still love him.

My daughter cries for me when she is at her dad's house, and it is all I can do to physically restrain myself from busting down his door to get my baby. She is mine and I am hers, in the purest sense, and the separation we go through because the court decided to treat her like a widget is killing us both.

I dropped the ball at school this semester. I am a Taurus. I am so Taurus cows envy me. Unfortunately, that means I can only be good at one thing at a time. That one is amazingly, phenomenally good, but everything else suffers. Right now, it had to be me putting myself back together again.

I love to eat. I am a great cook. I would make a the best little housewife in the world.

I hope he is happy, and I hope she is, too.

I live in the world, but I am not of it.